Re: Any other writers out there (as in self publishing) and what do you use?

Originally Posted by KBD47

Formatting can be important if you are self-publishing and plan on setting up a Table of Contents, etc. I use Heading 1 for new chapters and Heading 2 for sub-chapters. And 'default' for the text. I have found that to set the page around 6 x 9 comes out pretty good for ereaders or trade paperbacks. For Amazon Kindle they have some tips online about setting up your formatting for their books.

I just formatted a book. I also use headings as above. I also finally realised that it is best to use sections and one document for the book. Never ever number the pages till everything else is done! To make the page more interesting I put a shaded bar along the heading and the page number going right accross the page. Came out rather nice.

I did my last book with libre and got the proof back - it does not look bad at all. I showed it to a guy I know who was a printer for a publisher and who really does know a lot about the process. He was great with technical advice.

When self publishing it is important to try and follow the normal standards for a book. I literally scour the web for info on publishing and editing and so on. I also go for the 6x9 option as it also makes overall cost cheaper. However, that is not really UK standard.

No book will look good self published unless you also get an editor. The brain literally sees what you think you typed so you will never pick up your own mistakes.

Prior to anything going to the editor I also use www.grammarcheck.com and www.autocrit.com and ATD. They won't pick up everything or the sense of what you are saying but it gets some grammatical stuff ironed out.

I also do edit/find for mistakes like .. ,. ., etc. If you put the correction in it will find and change those for you in any editor.

Oh and just to depress us all who write. The cover is what sells the book and many people only apparently read a few pages of any book! (Got that from a publisher friend.)

Re: Any other writers out there (as in self publishing) and what do you use?

Just an update.. ZIM WIKI (available in the Ubuntu Repositories) is very stable. I previously said that some of the documents I would delete kept popping back up in the document-contents pane. Their FAQ said it's due to having links to a document that had been deleted. Sure enough, that's exactly what was happening--I just went back and deleted my links and the ghosts never came back. that's a classic case of operator error and blaming the application!

QUESTION: Has anyone used Scrivener under WINE, and how stable is this setup? Is it perfect?

Re: Any other writers out there (as in self publishing) and what do you use?

I also looked up BookWrite. It looks pretty good. There is a Table of Contents style bookmarks frame for easy access to different sections of your work. It could be branched into individual scenes as well, I suppose.